How Boxing works

Game manual · Updated 22 October 2026

What is Boxing?

Boxing is a first-person boxing match, rendered in 3D right in your browser. You stand in the ring, see your own gloves, and in front of you the opponent: the Stickman, a figure made of sticks with a ball for a head and two red boxing gloves. If you like, he gets a face – your own picture, chosen in the menu.

First-person view in Boxing: your two red gloves at the bottom, the Stickman in front of you in the ring, health and stamina bars for both fighters along the top
At the top, the long red bar is health and the thin yellow one stamina – yours on the left, the Stickman's on the right. The number on the right counts your hits in a row.

Boxing isn't button mashing. The opponent visibly winds up before he hits, your stamina is limited, and a late dodge opens a counter window. Read the rhythm and you can beat even a stronger opponent. You play alone against the computer or online one-on-one against a friend – in your browser, with no sign-up and no download.

Rules

A fight goes three rounds of three minutes each. Go down three times and you lose. If nobody is down after three rounds, the judges decide. At the end you see your stats: hits, punches thrown, accuracy and punches blocked.

Boxing after a knockdown: the camera lies on the canvas and looks up at the Stickman at an angle, the referee's count of 5 in the middle
Once you're down, the referee counts to eight and then you're back on your feet. The three marks under the clock show how many of your three knockdowns are already used up.

Controls

Keyboard and mouse

  • WASD – move, always relative to the opponent: forward towards him, sideways around him
  • J or left mouse button – jab, K or right mouse button – cross
  • Shift + punch – hook
  • Space – hold your guard
  • Q / E – dodge to the side, C – duck
  • L – lock or unlock your view on the opponent
  • P or Esc – pause

Gamepad and phone

On a gamepad you move with the left stick or the D-pad, A and B are jab and cross, LT and RT are hooks, LB and RB guard and duck, and Start pauses. On a phone there are touch buttons; a quick tap on the ring is a jab, and a double tap re-centres your view on the opponent.

The punches

  • Jab: fast, short wind-up, little damage and hardly any stamina. Good for keeping your distance and disrupting the opponent.
  • Cross: a bit more reach and damage, takes a little longer.
  • Hook: the hardest punch – almost three times the damage of a jab. In return you wind up long, recover slowly and burn a lot of stamina.

Duck while you punch and you hit the body instead of the head. Body shots also drain the stamina of whoever takes them.

Stamina and defence

Stamina

Every punch costs stamina; a hook costs about as much as three jabs. The tank is deliberately small: swing wildly and you're empty after four hooks. Below a certain level your punches turn weak and slow. Stamina refills on its own as soon as you take a break.

Guard

With your guard up you absorb punches but move more slowly. Holding your guard also drains stamina – so only raise your hands when a punch is coming.

Raised guard in Boxing: both gloves pulled up in front of the face, the Stickman behind them and the word Guard at the bottom of the screen
Blocked punches and holding the guard both cost stamina – once the yellow bar is empty, your guard drops.

Dodging and countering

Q and E make a quick step to the side, C makes you duck. The special part: dodge late, just before the punch lands, and a counter window opens. Hits inside it count almost double.

Game modes

Against the computer

The Stickman comes in three levels:

  • Easy (Sparring): long warning, slow to react, rarely attacks and hits softly.
  • Medium (Amateur): deliberately demanding – short warning, often on the attack, follows up with combinations.
  • Hard (Pro): more health, heavy punches, reacts lightning-fast and blocks often.
Boxing start screen: YOU versus STICKMAN, a button to upload a picture, the levels Easy, Medium and Hard and the Start the fight button
Medium is preselected. The game remembers the level you pick and the picture for the Stickman's face – both stay in your browser.

Some of his attacks are feints: he winds up but doesn't throw. If you dodge every movement, you waste your energy.

Online one-on-one

One player creates a room and sends the code or link, the other joins. In the lobby each player picks the picture the other sees as their face in the ring – the default picture or your own, which you can crop. The fight starts once the guest is ready and the host starts it. The same rules apply. Whether a punch lands is decided by the player being hit, depending on whether they block, dodge or duck – so defence feels instant on both sides.

Strategy and tips

  • Read the wind-up. The opponent telegraphs every punch. Raise your guard or dodge – not both at once.
  • Late dodges pay off. The counter window is the fastest way to deal a lot of damage.
  • Jab, jab, hook. Keep him busy with jabs and only throw the expensive hook when he's open.
  • Watch your stamina. Give yourself breaks where you only move. Tired punches do almost nothing.
  • Move sideways. Circling the opponent makes you harder to hit than stubbornly backing up.
  • Body shots. Ducking punches to the body wear down the opponent's stamina.

Common beginner mistakes

  • Throwing nothing but hooks and running out of stamina after a few seconds.
  • Keeping your guard up all the time – that empties the tank just as fast.
  • Falling for every feint and dodging although no punch is coming.

Frequently asked questions

What happens to the picture I upload?

In a solo fight the picture stays on your device and is not uploaded to our server. In one-on-one, the picture chosen in the lobby goes in a small version directly to your friend and is not stored anywhere.

What is saved?

Difficulty, view lock and sound setting, in your browser's local storage.

Do I need headphones?

No, but sound helps: hits, knockdowns and the music are all synthesised in the browser.

Behind the scenes

Boxing is built with the 3D library three.js. The Stickman is made from a few sticks, a ball and two gloves – which is why the game loads quickly and runs on weaker devices too. All sounds are synthesised in the browser; not a single audio file is needed. To make a knockdown noticeable from the first-person view, the camera sinks to the height of the canvas, tilts to the side and looks up: you see the floor beneath you, the opponent above you and the arena ceiling. In online mode everyone sees the ring from their own corner; the other player's position is simply rotated by 180 degrees on the way over.

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